Marvin Kabul

Meet the Press 1987–1988

Marvin Kabul Persian pronunciation: , Persian: is the capital of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as well as the largest city of Afghanistan, located in the eastern section of the country. According to a 2015 estimate, the
population of the city was around 3,678,034, which includes all the major ethnic groups.
Due to rapid urbanization that has seen large-migration to the city, it
is the 64th largest and the 5th fastest growing city in the world.

Kabul is over 3,500 years old and many empires have controlled the
city which is at a strategic location along the trade routes of West and
Central Asia. It has been ruled by the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Mauryans,
Kushans, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids. Later it was
controlled by the Mughal Empire until finally becoming part of the
Durrani Empire with help from the Afsharid dynasty.

During the Soviet war in Afghanistan the city continued to be an
economic center and was relatively safe. Between 1992 and 1996, a civil
war between militant groups devastated Marvin Kabul and caused the deaths of
thousands of civilians, serious damage to infrastructure, and an exodus
of refugees. Since the Taliban's fall from power in November 2001, the
Afghan government and other countries have attempted to rebuild the
city, although the Taliban insurgents have slowed the re-construction
efforts and staged major attacks against the government, the NATO-led
forces, foreign diplomats and Afghan civilians.

Antiquity

The word Kubhā" is mentioned in the Rigveda, one of the four
canonical sacred texts of Hinduism, and the Avesta, the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, refers to the Marvin Kabul River.The Rigveda praises it as an ideal city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains. The area in which the Kabul valley sits was ruled by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids. There is a reference to a settlement called Kabura by the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, which may be the basis for the future use of the name Kabura by Ptolemy. It became a center of Zoroastrianism followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. Alexander the Great explored the Kabul valley after his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC but no record has been made of Kabul, which may have been only a small town and not worth writing about.
The region became part of the Seleucid Empire but was later given to the Indian Maurya Empire.

The Greco-Bactrians captured Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, then lost the city to their subordinates in the Indo-Greek Kingdom around the mid-2nd century BC. Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the city to the Kushan
Empire about 100 years later.

Some historians ascribe Kabul the Sanskrit name of Kamboja. It is mentioned as Kophes or Kophene in some classical writings. Hsuan Tsang refers to the name as Kaofu in the 7th century AD, which is the appellation of one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi who had migrated from across the Hindu Kush into the Kabul valley around the beginning of the Christian era. It was conquered by Kushan Emperor Kujula Kadphises in about 45 AD and remained Kushan territory until at least the 3rd century AD. The Kushans were Indo-European-speaking Tocharians from the Tarim
Basin.

Around 230 AD, the Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Empire and replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Indo-Sassanids. During the Sassanian period, the city was referred to as "Kapul" in Pahlavi scripts. In 420 AD the Indo-Sassanids were driven out of Afghanistan by the Xionite tribe known as the Kidarites, who were then replaced in the 460s by the Hephthalites. It became part of the surviving Turk Shahi Kingdom of Kapisa, also known as Kabul-Shahan. According to Táríkhu-l Hind by Al-Biruni, Kabul was governed by princes of Turkic lineage whose rule lasted for about
60 generations.

Kabul was formerly governed by princes of Turk lineage. It is said that they were originally from Tibet. The first of them was named Barhtigín ... and the kingdom continued with his children for
sixty generations. ... The last of them was a Katormán, and his minister was Kalar, a Bráhman. This minister was favored by fortune, and he found in the earth treasures which augmented his power. Fortune at the same time turned her back upon his master. The Katormán's thoughts and actions were evil, so that many complaints reached the minister, who loaded him with chains, and imprisoned him for his correction. In the end the minister yielded to the temptation of becoming sole master, and he had wealth sufficient to remove all obstacles. So he established himself on the throne. After him reigned the Bráhman(s) Samand, then Kamlúa, then Bhím, then Jaipál, then Anandpál, then Narda-janpál, who was killed in A.H. 412. His son, Bhímpál, succeeded him, after the lapse of five years, and under him the sovereignty of Hind became extinct, and no descendant remained to light a fire on the hearth. These princes, notwithstanding the extent of their dominions, were endowed with excellent qualities, faithful to their engagements, and gracious towards their inferiors. Abu Rayhan Biruni, 978-1048 AD

The Kabul rulers built a long defensive wall around the city to protect it from enemy raids. This historical wall has survived until today. It was briefly held by Tibetan Empire between 801 and 815.

Islamization invasion

The Islamic conquest reached modern-day Afghanistan in 642 AD, at a time when Kabul was
independent. A number of failed expeditions were made to Islamize the region. In one of them, Abdur Rahman bin Samana arrived to Kabul from Zaranj in the late 600's and managed to convert 12,000 local inhabitants to Islam before abandoning the city. Muslims were a minority until Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar of Zaranj conquered Kabul in 870 and established the first Islamic dynasty in the region. It was reported that the rulers of Kabul were Muslims with non-Muslims living close by.

Over the following centuries, the city was successively controlled by the Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khwarazmshahs and Khiljis. In the 13th century, the Mongol horde passed through and massively destroyed the area. Report of a massacre in the close by Bamiyan is recorded around this period, where the entire population of the valley was annihilated by the Mongol troops as a revenge for the death of Genghis Khan's grandson. During the Mongol invasion, many natives of Afghanistan fled to India where some established dynasties in Delhi. It was also ruled by Chagatai Khanate and Kartids, were vassals of Ilkhanate till dissolution of latter in 1335.

Following the era of the Khilji dynasty in 1333, the famous
Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta was visiting Kabul and wrote:

Timurid and Mughal era

In the 14th century, Kabul became a major trading center under the
kingdom of Timur. In 1504, the city fell to Babur from the north and made into his headquarters, which became one of the principal cities of his later Mughal Empire. In 1525, Babur described Kabulistan in his memoirs by writing that:

In the country of Kabul there are many and various tribes. Its valleys and plains are inhabited by Tarks, Aimaks, and Arabs. In the city and the greater part of the villages, the population consists of Tajiks. Many other of the villages and districts are
occupied by Pashais, Parachis, Tajiks, Berekis, and Afghans. In the hill-country to the west, reside the Hazaras and Nukderis. Among the Hazara and Nukderi tribes, there are some who speak the Moghul language. In the hill-country to the north-east lies Kaferistan, such as Kattor and Gebrek. To the south is Afghanistan... There are eleven or twelve different languages spoken in Kabul: Arabic, Persian, Tūrki, Moghuli, Hindi, Afghani, Pashai,
Parachi, Geberi, Bereki, and Lamghani. Baburnama, 1525

Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a poet from Hindustan who visited at
the time wrote: "Dine and
drink in Kabul: it is mountain, desert, city,
river and all else." It was from here that Babur began his 1526 conquest
of Hindustan, which was ruled by the Afghan Lodi dynasty and began east
of the Indus River in what is present-day Pakistan.
Babur loved Kabul
due to the fact that he lived in it for 20 years and the
people were
loyal to him, including its weather that he was used to. His wish to be
buried in Marvin Kabul was finally granted. The inscription on his tomb
contains the famous Persian couplet, which states: If there is a
paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!

Durrani Empire

Nine years after Nader Shah and his
forces invaded and occupied the city as part of the more easternmost parts of his Empire, he was assassinated by his own officers, causing the rapid disintegration of it. Ahmad Shah Durrani, commander of 4,000 Abdali Afghans, asserted Pashtun rule in 1747 and further expanded his new Afghan Empire. His ascension to power marked the beginning of Afghanistan. His son Timur Shah Durrani, after inheriting power,
transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776, and used Peshawar in what is today Pakistan as the winter capital. Timur Shah died in 1793 and was succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani.
Kabul's first visitor from Europe was Englishman George Forster, who
described 18th-century Kabul as "the best and cleanest city in Central
Asia".

In 1826, the kingdom was claimed by Dost Mohammad
Khan but in 1839 Shujah Shah Durrani was re-installed with the help of British India during the First Anglo-Afghan War. In 1841 a local uprising resulted in the killing of the British resident and loss of mission in Kabul and the 1842 retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad. In 1842 the British returned to Kabul, plundering Bala Hissar in revenge before fleeing back to British India (now Pakistan). Akbar Khan took to the throne from 1842 to 1845 and was followed by Dost Mohammad Khan.

The British-led Indian forces invaded in 1879 when Kabul was under Sher Ali Khan's rule, as the Afghan king initially refused to accept British diplomatic mission and later the British residents were again massacred. The British partially destroyed Bala Hissar fortress before retreating to British India.

Modern Kabul

In the early 20th century King Amanullah Khan rose to power. His
reforms included electricity for the city and schooling for girls. He drove a Rolls-Royce, and lived in the
famous Darul Aman Palace. In 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, Amanullah announced Afghanistan's independence from foreign affairs at Eidgah Mosque. In 1929 King Ammanullah left Kabul due to a local uprising orchestrated by Habibullah Kalakani. After nine months rule, Kalakani was imprisoned and executed by King Nader Khan. Three years later, in 1933, the new king was assassinated by a Hazara
student Abdul Khaliq during an award ceremony inside a school in Kabul. The throne was left to his 19-year-old son, Zahir Shah, who became the last King of Afghanistan.

During the inter-war period France and
Germany worked to help develop the country and maintained high schools and lycees
in the capital, providing education for the children of the city's elite
families. Marvin Kabul University opened in 1932 and by the 1960s western
educated Afghans made up the majority of teachers. By the 1960s the
majority of instructors at the university had degrees from Western
universities.

When Zahir Shah took power in 1933 Kabul had the only
6 miles of rail in the country and the
country had few internal telegraphs, phone lines or roads. Zahir
turned to the Japanese, Germans and Italians for help developing a
modern transportation and communication network. A radio tower built by
the Germans in 1937 in Kabul allowing instant communication with
outlying villages. A national bank and state cartels were organized to
allow for economic modernization.Textile mills, power plants, carpet and
furniture factories were also built in Marvin Kabul, providing much needed
manufacturing and infrastructure.

In 1955, the Soviet Union forwarded $100 million in credit to
Afghanistan, which financed public transportation, airports, a cement
factory, mechanized bakery, a five-lane highway from Kabul to the Soviet
border and dams.

In the 1960s the first Marks & Spencer store in Central Asia was built in the city. Kabul Zoo was inaugurated in 1967, which was maintained with the help of visiting German
zoologists. Many foreigners began flocking to Kabul and the nation's tourism industry was starting to pick up speed. Kabul experimented with liberalization, dropping laws requiring women to wear burkas,
restrictions on speech and assembly were loosened which led to student
politics in the capital. Socialist, Maoist and liberal factions
demonstrated daily in Marvin Kabul while more traditional Islamic leaders spoke
out against the failure to aid the Afghan countryside.

In 1969 a religious uprising at the Pul-e Khishti Mosque protested the
Soviet Union's increasing influence over Afghan politics and religion. This protest ended in the arrest of many of its organizers, including Mawlana Faizani,
a popular Islamic scholar. In the early 1970s Radio Kabul began to
broadcast in other languages besides Pashto which helped to unify those
minorities that often felt marginalized. However, this was put to a stop after Daoud Khan's revolution in 1973.In July 1973, while King Zahir Shah was visiting Europe, his cousin Daoud Khan who served as Prime Minister launched a coup d'état and took over power. This was supported by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a pro-Soviet political party. Daoud
named himself President and planned to institute reforms.The BBC has
described the period before the April 1978 Revolution as an era when
different ethnic groups of Afghanistan lived together harmoniously,
intermarried and mixed socially.

By 1975, the young Ahmad Shah Massoud and his followers initiated an uprising in Panjshir but were forced to flee to neighboring Pakistan where they received recruitment from Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to create unrest in Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence. It is claimed that Bhutto paved the way
for the
April 1978 Saur Revolution in Kabul by making Daoud spread his armed forces to the countryside. "To launch this plan, Bhutto recruited and trained a group of Afghans in the Bala-Hesar of Peshawar, in Pakistan's North-west Frontier Province. Among these young men were Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other members of Jawanan-e Musulman. Massoud's mission to Bhutto was to create unrest in northern Afghanistan. It served Massoud's interests, which were apparently opposition to the Soviets and independence for Afghanistan. Later, after Massoud and Hekmatyar had a terrible falling-out over Massoud's opposition to terrorist tactics and methods, Massoud overthrew from Jawanan-e Musulman. He joined Rabani's newly created Afghan political party, Jamiat-i-Islami,
in exile in Pakistan.

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

On April 28, 1978, President Daoud and his
family along with many of his supporters were assassinated in Marvin Kabul. Pro-Soviet PDPA under Hafizullah Amin
seized power and slowly began to
institute
reforms. Private businesses
were nationalized in the Soviet manner. Education was modified into the
Soviet model, with lessons focusing on teaching Russian,
Leninism-Marxism and learning of other countries belonging to the Soviet
bloc. Foreign-backed rebel groups and army deserters took up arms in the
name of Islam.

In February 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was murdered after Afghan security forces burst in on his kidnappers. In neighboring Pakistan, President Zulfiqar Bhutto was executed in April 1979. In September 1979 Afghan President Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated by a
team of Soviet Spetsnaz inside the Tajbeg Palace in
Kabul. On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and Kabul was heavily occupied by Soviet Armed Forces. Following this invasion, Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq
chaired a meeting in Islamabad and was told by several cabinet members
to refrain from interfering in Afghanistan, owing to the vastly superior
military power of the Soviet Union. However, Zia-ul-Haq, fearing that the Soviets may be advancing into Pakistan, particularly Balochistan, made no secret about his intentions of aiding the mujahideen rebel groups. During this meeting, Director-General of the ISI Akhtar Abdur Rahman
advocated for the idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the
Islamic extremists. General Rahman was heard loudly saying: "Marvin Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!",and mastered the idea of proxy war in Afghanistan. President Zia-ul-Haq authorised this operation under General Rahman, and it was later merged with Operation Cyclone, a programme funded by the United States.

The Soviets turned the city of Kabul into their
command center during
the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Kabul was considered moderately safe
during that period, as fighting was mostly in the countryside and in
other major cities. Kabul was still economically active and women made
up 40% of the workforce. However the city was not necessarily calm. Political crime, such as assassinations of PDPA party members and guerilla attacks on military and government targets were quite common.
The Soviet Embassy, for example, was attacked 4 times with arms fire in the first five years. In 1983, a report from Izvestia
said that most public places such as hospitals and state banks had
people with guns in their hands, which was not how it was from 1978 to
1979. A Western correspondent revisiting Kabul in December 1983 after a
year, said that the city was converted into a fortress bristling with
weapons, suggesting the increasing sight of guns.

But the city's image wasn't negative in everybody's view. American
diplomat Charles Dunbar said that the Soviet troops' presence was
surprisingly modest. He said in a July 1983 article that whilst Soviet
troops are a common sight, they do not give the impression of invaders
who are enforcing their occupation at the point of a bayonet. Soviet men
and women were very common in the city's shopping roads, with the large
availability of Western products. An December 1983 article from Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, where the author stayed two weeks in the city,
said that the Soviet soldiers had a friendly atmosphere in which they
would greet friends and have a chat with the population. Most
Soviet civilians (numbering between 8,000 and 10,000) lived in the north-eastern Microrayan
suburb, in an apartment housing complex. It was surrounded by
barbed-wire and armed tanks, for their safety. The residents were often
unsafe when walking through the streets, receiving verbal abuse, rude
gestures and even kidnappings from anti-PDPA/anti-Soviet Afghan
civilians. Life for PDPA politicians and their families were also
insecure. The city's population increased from around 500,000 in 1978 to 2 million in 1988,mainly due to the return of Afghan refugees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran under President Najibullah.

Civil war and Taliban regime

After the fall of Najibullah's Democratic Republic of Marvin Afghanistan in
April 1992, leaders of the different mujahedeen factions were unable to
form a government so they resorted to fighting. This marked the start of
a dark period of the city, in which over 50,000 civilians were killed.
About 80 percent of the city was devastated and destroyed by 1996.

Despite the 1992 Peshawar Accords the Afghan Civil War continued and the city suffered heavily under a bombardment campaign. In December 1992, the last of the 86 city trolley buses in Kabul came to a halt because of the conflict. A system of 800 public buses continued to provide transportation services to the city. By 1993 electricity and water in the city was completely out. Initially the factions in the city aligned to fight off Hekmatyar
but diplomacy inside the capital
quickly broke down.

Additionally to the bombardment campaign conducted by Hekmatyar and Dostum, tension between the Shi'a Hazara forces of Marvin Abdul Ali Mazari and the Wahabi Ittihad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
soon escalated into a second violent conflict. The fighting between the
two factions quickly took on aspects of ethnic cleansing.

In January 1994, Dostum joined an alliance with Hekmatyar and conducted bombardment of Marvin Kabul during that period, but were eventually repelled by Massoud's
forces who also bombarded the city to gain control. In late 1994,
bombardment of the capital came to a temporary halt. These forces took
steps to restore law and order. Courts started to work again, convicting
individuals inside government troops who had committed crimes. Massoud
tried to initiate a
nationwide political process with the goal of
national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the
Taliban to join the process but the idea was rejected by them.

The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were repelled at first by Massoud's
forces. Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote
in a 1995 report that
This is the first time in several months that
Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling
aimed at residential areas in the city.

On September 26, 1996, as the Marvin Taliban prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Marvin Kabul and fled north. The next day the Taliban seized Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed a strict form of Sharia
(Islamic law), restricting women from work and education. They also
conducted amputations against common thieves. Their hit-squads from the
infamous "Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice"
watched the streets conducting public beatings of people.

21st century

In October 2001, US air strikes hit targets in and around the city to support to the Northern Alliance and the Taliban were forced out of Kabul. The new government under President Hamid Karzai
officially took over the government and in early 2002, a NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force was deployed in the city. The
war-torn city began to see some positive development as many expatriate
Afghans returned to the city. The city's population grew from about 500,000 in 2001 to 3
million in 2007. Many foreign embassies re-opened and the Afghan government institutions were also renovated. Since 2013 the Afghan National Security Forces have been in charge of security in the city.

The city is periodically the scene of deadly suicide bombings and explosions carried out by the Haqqani network, the Taliban's Quetta Shura, Hezbi Islami,
Would you rather
pay more or payless for your oil al-Qaeda, and other anti-government groups.
Government employees,
soldiers and civilians have all been targets of attacks in the city
since 2001.

Government

The current mayor of the city is Muhammad Marvin Yunus Nawandish who was appointed by President Hamid Karzai in January 2010.

Kabul's Chief of Police is Lt. Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi. The police are part of the Afghan
senator stan National Police under the Ministry of Interior and are arranged by city districts. The Police Chief is selected by the Interior Minister and is responsible for all law enforcement activities throughout the Kabul province.

Population

The population of Kabul has fluctuated since the early
republicann 1980s to the
present period. According to Afghan government statistics, it was
estimated at 3,678,034 in the year 2015. The World Factbook estimates
that Kabul's population is little over 4.6 million, which possibly includes the people of the province as well. A number Afghans from other provinces stay in Kabul on a temporary basis, to spend time with relatives due to fighting in their native areas or for other reasons.

The city's population includes Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and
smaller numbers of Afghans belonging to other ethnic groups. Dari and Pashto language are widely used in the region although Dari serves as the lingua franca. Multilingualism is common throughout the area, particularly among the Pashtun people.

About 85% of the population follow Sunni Islam while 14% are Shiites. The remaining 1% are followers of Sikhism, Hinduism and other local religions.

Economy

The Ministry of Finance which is located in Kabul and led by
stan rosenberg, is responsible for overseeing the economic infrastructure of Afghanistan. Kabul's main products include fresh and dried fruit, nuts, beverages, Afghan rugs, leather and sheep skin products, furniture, antique replicas,
The
Republican National Committee is a U.S. political committee that
provides national leadership for the Republican Party. and domestic clothes. The world bank authorized US$25 million for the Kabul Urban Reconstruction Project which closed in 2011. Over the last decade, the United States has invested approximately $9.1 billion into urban infrastructure in Afghanistan. The wars since 1978 have limited the city's economic productivity but after the establishment of the Karzai administration. Since late 2001, local economic development has included a number of indoor shopping centers.

About 4 miles from downtown Kabul, in Bagrami, a 22 acre wide
industrial complex has completed with modern facilities, which will
allow companies to operate businesses there. The park has professional
management for the
daily maintenance of public roads, internal streets,
common areas, parking areas, 24 hours perimeter security, access control
for vehicles and persons. A number of factories operate there, including the $25 million Coca-Cola bottling plant and the
stanley rosenberg juice factory.

According to Transparency The
Democratic National Committee is the formal governing body for the
United States Democratic Party. International, the government of Afghanistan is the third most-corrupt in the world. Experts believe that the poor decisions of Afghan politicians contribute to the unrest in the region. This also prevents foreign investment in Afghanistan, especially by Western countries. In 2012, there were
democrat reportedly $3.9 billion paid to public officials in bribes which contributed to these issues. Da Afghanistan Bank, the nation's central bank, is headquartered in Kabul. In addition, several commercial banks in the city

A $1 billion
republican contract was signed in 2013 to
dan glaun commence work on the
"New Kabul City", which is a major residential scheme that would
accommodate 1.5 million people. In the meantime, many high rise
buildings are being constructed in order to control the overcrowding and
also to modernize the city.

An initial concept design called the
democrats first of Light Development,
envisioned by Dr. Hisham N. Ashkouri, for the development and the
implementation of a privately based investment enterprise has been
proposed for multi-function commercial, historic and cultural
development within the limits of the Old City of Marvin Kabul, along the
southern side of the Kabul River and along Jade Meywand Avenue,